I also wanted to revisit a point I made a few sentences up concerning CRUD systems in frameworks. This is a critical feature that I wish to address in Constrictor, and I am currently writing up two detailed posts about both CRUD systems and the (planned) growing importance of the Request object in acting as a middleman between the Constrictor core, controllers, and the server system, allowing for the development of third-party servers as soon as possible. The development is still on track for an alpha release within the next month, though I am planning for a one-week no-Internet retreat in about five weeks to focus on my creative side and hopefully put together some massive documentation of current and upcoming Constrictor features.

If you’re interested in helping out, feel free to shoot me an email and I’m sure we can work something out.

Meet in the Middle

The DiggBar has made it obvious that Digg is feeling the heat to deliver, and in tough times like these, childish bickering on both sides is counterproductive to the best interests of both parties. Instead, I propose that bloggers and other content producers work on meeting Digg in the middle. Digg has shown that to they need to maintain the readership and involvement of their users, and bloggers often rely on the readership that sites like Digg can bring to them. I guess, in a sense, that I’m asking for Digg to realize the mistakes they’ve made, and work with bloggers to find a solution to this. Bloggers, in return, need to realize that Digg is facing difficulties and work with Digg to help Digg help them.

A possible solution would be to have Digg act more like a true URL shortening service. This means providing actual 301 redirects and being more SEO-friendly. I happen to remember Digg saying that the ‘Bar was for their users. So why not target the DiggBar to the actual Digg users and let everyone else browse in bliss? The current heavy handed tactics of imposing the DiggBar on everyone make me think of the massive corporations with little experience with the Internet and who are accustomed to running roughshod over customers. Digg needs to clean up their act and begin working both sides of their profit aisle, target the DiggBar towards actual Digg users, while allowing everyone else to enjoy the handy URL-shortening service without being forced to bust out of frames.

Gears of War 2

The great thing about is Gears is that every aspect of it that matters to me is great. Built upon Unreal Engine 3, Gears manages to deliver solid graphics, physics, and gameplay all the time. To me, Gears is the perfect example of what a sequel for such as successful game should deliver, a strong all-around improvement with minimal changes of fundamental mechanics. The sheer brilliance of the gameplay is one of the most appealing things, shooting shit is actually really fun. The fact that there’s only one weapon for each generic type of gun (Pistols are an exception, and the Hammerburst is a world apart from the Lancer) simplifies both single- and multiplayer gameplay, making the firing of the weapon more of a pleasurable experience instead of a frustrating defeat when you realize you’re horribly outgunned. The emphasis on inaccurate weapons (With only two or three truly accurate firearms.) makes most of the firefights a spray-and-play (Especially in Campaign and Horde); when this is combined with perfectly engineered sound, controller vibration, and wonderfully destructible environments, you get a game that makes shooting the hell of stuff an enjoyable experience.

The aforementioned Campaign and Horde modes are also a major draw for Gears. Horde is so well executed that surviving waves upon waves of nasties becomes a light-hearted romp around with your friends with only a few tense moments that get the adrenaline pumping. The Campaign is similar in that it combines both elements of tenseness as well as extreme hilarity listening to the melodramatic dialogue of Marcus and Dom, with even more enjoyable cut-scenes of Cole-Train being an absolute bad-ass. This epitomizes the most important thing about Gears, it does everything well, and fails at nothing. This is a rare occasion among modern first-person shooters. (And putting a chain-saw on the bottom of a gun is still a truly brilliant idea.)

Warhammer Online

There’s not much to say about Warhammer. It takes very World of Warcraft-style mechanics and dumps them into a much better-looking world with an enjoyably stronger player-versus-player experience. The fact that you can get to max level without ever killing something besides an enemy player is truly wonderful, and the Keep/City sieges introduce a spirit of cooperation between truly massive numbers of players. While World of Warcraft may be famous for its 40-man raids of bosses the size of a house, Warhammer stands out for its clashes of hundreds players in the middle of a massive fortress. When it comes to being a massively multiplayer game, Warhammer obviously should be at the top of the list.

If you want to shoot some crap with me on Gears, my gamertag is “Esherido”, and if you want to go raid some Destruction fortresses with me on Warhammer, I’m also “Esherido” on the Iron Rock server.

The Magic of Python

The most exciting part (in my opinion) of Constrictor is the fact that it is in Python and will be heavily using Python’s module/object-oriented programming style. Models will be registered with the system instead of being automatically detected and imported in an invisible process that the programmer has control over. The same will be done with Controllers, Views, and Queries (which will be discussed later). One of the disadvantages of Python is that it often lacks the “elegance” of Ruby, though I hope its eventual power and speed will make up for that.

Queries

Constrictor will be, by default, ORM-agnostic. However, it will be bundled with built-in ORM’s for many popular databases. One of the most exciting features of these ORM systems is their use of a new system of interfacing with the database. Unlike ActiveRecord and other popular platforms, which use only Models to define a table, Constrictor will use both Models and Queries. Models are related to the actual rows of a table; they define the structure of the table, and each row of result data from a query will be, by default, returned in a Model. Queries, on the other hand, are related to the actual querying of the database. They can be related to tables, such as the IntelligentQuery system, which will make a Query directly related to a Model and automatically add methods to the Query to make it easier to perform common queries on the table. However, Queries can also simply be boxes in which to dump routines for querying the database. The flexibility of the Query will hopefully allow it to take up a role that has only been vaguely defined and only partially filled in previous ORM platforms.

Feel free to contact me if you are interested in helping out with the development of Constrictor. You can catch pre-alpha releases on GitHub.

Comments?

As of now I have disable commenting since I have discovered that it rarely provides to be that useful. Instead, feel free to contact me using the link in the header or @reply on Twitter. I’m currently working on a post about a user-interaction concept that I will be publishing tomorrow.